DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2020
Jul
12
 
 
Director Liz Garbus’ approach to Michelle McNamara’s book and research has been part detective story, part character study – and completely fascinating. And the deeper this nonfiction miniseries gets into the story, and the murders and rapes McNamara is probing, the more unsettling, yet compelling, this TV series gets.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
12
 
 
This day in 2002 marked the debut of the detective series, Monk...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
11
 
 
This day in 2011 marked the final telecast of Law & Order: LA...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
11
 
 
It might be either reassuring or depressing, under present circumstances, to hear the lyric “No one is alone,” but I highly recommend this weekend’s special offering of a double dose of TV versions of stage presentations of the brilliant Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical. Today and tomorrow, the BroadwayHD website presents access, with its regular subscription fee (but you can opt for a one-week free trial) to two deep dives into the Woods. The first to watch is t
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
11
 
 
Only two Saturdays ago, HBO premiered the 2019 movie Dr. Sleep, a movie based on Stephen King’s sequel to his own horror novel The Shining. So it’s an opportune time, tonight, to revisit Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation of The Shining itself. King didn’t like much of what Kubrick did – but I love it. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall star. And Lisa and Louise Burns, in very small roles, make a huge impact. They played the twin girls
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
11
 
 
A government out of control. A president helpless to act in the face of imminent danger. Madness and unpredictability everywhere you turn. A sick feeling that our government and way of life may be at risk, and there’s little to be done to stop it. Substitute the word “Virus” for “Bomb” in the subtitle of this 1964 classic Stanley Kubrick film (yes, him again), and you may get a sense of why this very dark comedy is more vital and pertinent than ever. Peter Sellers s
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
11
 
 
Peter Sellers (yes, him again) stars – playing several roles, as he would do later in Dr. Strangelove – in this 1959 comedy, which predates and politicizes the general concept of Mel Brooks’ The Producers. In that Sixties classic, Broadway producers schemed to mount an intentional flop so they could profit from all the unrecoverable losses. In The Mouse That Roared, a tiny country declares war on the United States, so it can lose quickly and benefi
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
11
 
 
Pamela Adlon and Ramy Youssef now have two more things in common...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
10
 
 
MOVIE PREMIERE: Tom Hanks not only stars in this WWII drama, playing a commander escorting a convoy of Allied ships across German U-boat-infested waters, but wrote it as well. It sounds massively big in scale and budget, but Greyhound (the name of the vessel Hanks’ character commands) is oddly compact and focused. It’s almost like an Allied version of Das Boot, with the claustrophobia and paranoia part of the mix on and under the ocean waves. Hanks basically has t
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
10
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: The first three episodes of this new drama series with music premiere today, with the remainder arriving once weekly on subsequent Fridays. It’s about Bess, a young singer-songwriter trying to make it in New York. Bess is played by Brittany O’Grady, who already played one aspiring singer in Star – but here, she has a behind-the-scenes advantage or two. The songs sung and allegedly written by Bess actually are composed by Sara Bareilles, who produces t